modulus foundation

The Endosymbiont Hypothesis is a music performance project that transcends boundaries and expectations to create a new, truly contemporary musical idiom. The performances of this collective of six leading musicians/composers irreverently combine, juxtapose, weave through and re-imagine adventurous electronics, new music, free improv, rap and spoken word, artpop, contemporary opera, underground tekno, post-punk, field recordings, ethereal soundscapes and noise.

The Endosymbiont Hypothesis is inspired by the evolutionary theory by biologist Lynn Margulis, which postulates evolution as ‘an act of indigestion’: complex species emerged through symbiogenetic processes caused by simple organisms consuming other simple organisms but failing to digest them. This becomes a musical metaphor, imagining inventive ways to navigate and combine multiple identities and perspectives within society, within the group, within oneself. The whole evolves into something new that is greater than its parts by making space for the ‘other within’, by embracing symbiosis rather than erasure or domination, by seeking that which multiplies potential instead of what divides.

The group grows out of a recent project, Re-Imagining Opera, originally commissioned by V2_Lab for the Unstable Media, conceived by Stephanie Pan, and co-produced by Dutch National Opera. That project was performed at Dutch National Opera’s Opera Forward Festival and at V2_ X O. Festival in Rotterdam. It has since naturally evolved into the Endosymbiont Hypothesis, a collective that brings together the diverse lived experiences and musical and cultural roots of its 6 musicians/composers/ performers/makers.